Effective September 1, 2017, the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission require registrants to include active hyperlinks to documents listed in the exhibit indices in most registration statements and reports filed with the SEC. Relatedly, to enable the inclusion of these hyperlinks, companies must submit all such filings on EDGAR in HTML format rather than ASCII format.
The requirements apply to filings subject to the exhibit requirements in Item 601 of Regulation S-K, which generally includes registration statements under the Securities Act of 1933, as well as Forms 10, 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. They do not apply to filings with exhibit requirements governed by other rules, such as Schedules 13D or 13G.
The SEC adopted these rule changes in Rel. No. 33-10322, Exhibit Hyperlinks and HTML Format (Mar. 1, 2017), which is available at https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2017/33-10322.pdf. The September 1, 2017 effective date does not apply to non-accelerated filers and smaller reporting companies that submit filings in ASCII, which have an additional year to comply.